STRESS AGAIN KILLS THE HEART. If you read the last post, you’ll know that stress greatly increases your risk of dying of a heart attack. This particular study adds weight to the evidence, but from a different viewpoint. The outside of the adrenal glands produce 3 main hormones: cortisol, aldosterone and DHEA. We already know that elevated cortisol destroys the heart. Our bodies use aldosterone to keep blood pressure up (UP? Yes, up…with the exception of the past several hundred years, LOW blood pressure was a concern for survival, so our bodies have a tool to manage low blood pressure. High blood pressure, on the other hand, our bodies have no idea how to handle). So what happens during stress? Our adrenals shift wartime resources to cortisol, and the other two hormones suffer. In other words, DHEA levels drop. In this study, this leads to a greatly increased risk of cardiac death in line with the prior post. Interestingly, I have been surprised at how many medical doctors have been checking testosterone levels on patients. If the levels come back low (which many seem to) they recommend creams, injections, pills to “fix it.” No one ever seems to be concerned with WHY the levels are low. Guess what….low DHEA = low testosterone. So if you have low testosterone and your doctor does not dig deeper and look at the adrenals, you may be well on your way to heart problems. We have to ask the right questions.